Deliver Us From Evil
by Icy Frost
Summary: Henry's brief respite within the relative safety of his apartment is interrupted by a dreadfully familiar presence. In Walter's world, there is no such thing as divine intervention. WalterxHenry R
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Hiya guys. This story came to me one day a long, long time ago during school (isn't that where the most inspiration happens?!). It was originally a oneshot, but I decided to make it chaptered to make it easier for my readers. Yes I realize that Walter never/can't visit(s) Henry through the hole, but I guess I made an exception :P . This story contains somewhat graphic man on man lovin', and has brief RELIGIOUS themes. So if that in any way would offend you, I suggest you don't read. Anyway sit back, relax, and ENJOY.

Deliver Us From Evil

Henry did not want to move. Did not want to open his eyes. Didn't even want to breathe. His body ached with each rise and fall of his chest, and his head throbbed.

And throbbed.

And throbbed.

Each firing neuron felt as if hot nails were being driven into the area just above his eyebrow.

Henry's last run in with that water prison hadn't gone so well. Those.. creatures.. those two-headed freaks had caught him off guard with their bone-crunching swipes that left him sprawled out on the ground before he even had a chance to retaliate.

"Oooh, my God.." Groans, moans, words that one should repeat filled the small area of his bedroom over the last few hours as he tried to position himself just right on the mattress where his good side would be the only thing in contact with the comforter. Needless to say, he was failing.

_Don't go out! –Walter _(Henry's POV)

This man, this Walter probably couldn't even begin to understand what he was doing to me. Or hell, he probably could. He was.. watching me, as he so eloquently put it, wasn't he? What, was he some sort of sadistic bastard who got his jollies by watching innocent people suffer? No matter, what was I going to do..? I couldn't even move..

Nothing stung more to a man than being completely and totally at the mercy of someone else. I was trapped, trapped like a wolf caught in a snare, only I didn't exactly have the option of gnawing off my own leg to escape. I lay there, staring at the ceiling illuminated by the quickly dying light of the late afternoon sun. Everything looked so normal.. had I not been suffering from intermittent stabs of pain every time I inhaled, I might have even started to believe Cynthia's theory. This was all just a dream.. just a terrible, reoccurring, haunting dream that would eat away at my sanity if I let it.

_Your sanity won't last long here.._

Evil, distant laughter..humorous in a way twisted way that I might've started laughing too. I concentrated, eyes squinting up at the ceiling fan lazily turning. I heard that laugh.. I know I did. So clearly..

I just wanted this all to end. I just wanted this hellish slumber of mine to finally come to a close, and for me to _really _open my eyes. Grimacing, I carefully rolled over onto my back, hands draped uselessly on either side of my body. Even they felt heavy.. painful. I felt unbelievably dirty, filthy on a level even I could not comprehend. Yes, my body was wrecked, abused. But this filth was somewhere deeper than that.. it was in my soul which had become so encased in the horrors of the world beyond the hole that I could not recognize anymore. No, I had reached my wit's end. I didn't want to die just yet, but I didn't want to continue on like this..

"Walter.." The word felt like a curse. Really, who was this man? Why was he doing this to me? This ritual, these killings.. none of it made sense. Out of all the people in the world, he chose me.

"Walter…" A little louder this time. I couldn't tell whether or not I was calling to him or if saying his name.. comforted me. The thought of someone else being here with me in this hellhole, that maybe, just maybe, this psychotic man could be reasoned with, _this _was the only thing keeping me going. Deep down I knew it wouldn't work. I knew that Walter was beyond help.

"Goddamn you, Walter!" I cried, screaming in uncontrollable hysterics. No one could hear me. No one knew that I was trapped within my own home at the mercy of a man who believed it to be his mother. I cursed him over and over, voice breaking with each desperate shriek. I could feel the warmth of burning tears streaming in steady rivulets out of the corners of my eyes and soaking into the dirty pillow beneath my head.

Through the desperation and the sadness, a single, straying thought cut through the pain. I quieted and closed my eyes, inhaling a deep, calming breath through my nose. It was so silly to think that an old prayer could help me now. Wasn't it too late? But I persevered. "Our father, which art in Heaven, hallowed b-be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will.. will be done on e-earth as in h-heaven.." I paused, my mother's soothing voice massaging my tired brain with cherished memories of she and I kneeling before my bed as a child, reciting the very same prayer that I hoped help to protect me now. She'd always told me that He would look after me.. He would protect me from the evils in this world. _Walter. _"Give u-us our day by our daily bread—"

A loud noise, a bang sounded in the living room and the fear I could only describe as a familiar, sinking terror begin to constrict my chest, and I balled the sheets tightly within both fists. _Ignore it.. Ignore it.. Ignore it.. God.. ignore it._

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

Heavy footfalls sounded abnormally loud against the carpeted floor, drawing closer and closer to the room where I lay prone and helpless. The prayer was getting harder to remember.

"And forgive our sin—right, forgive our sin, for we forgive everyone that is indebted to us!" Abruptly I stopped. On the door to my room, a slam that sounded like an elephant trying to break through the thin wood shook me to my already warped and rattled core.

_Where is your god now, Henry..? _I couldn't tell if the thought had been my own, but at this point it really did not matter. I was desperate for redemption. _Please, save me.. _

"For we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.." Another bang. And another. "And lead us not into temptation—" The door was beginning to splinter underneath the stress. I wouldn't be getting any divine intervention. It was slowly but surely becoming apparent that my only companion here was the devil himself. I was in hell. God did not save people from hell. But still.. the prayer, I had to finish the prayer.. "Please, God.. please.. Deliver me from evil. Deliver me from evil Deliver me from evil!" My hysteric cries overshadowed the sound of the door finally falling free from its frame.

"Henry.." So musical was the sound, so mocking. I recognized the voice.

_Why me? _

Even though I had been addressed, I continued to cry, begging whatever deity above for forgiveness for whatever I'd done to deserve this.

A weight, not much heavier than my own, pressed down on the mattress, and the strong, familiar scent of sweat and blood rose to meet my nostrils. "You're so beautiful when you cry.." I shuddered and started my prayer again, murmuring it almost psychotically underneath beneath my breath, head shaking violently back and forth.

So this was it. This was going to be the death of me. I didn't dare open my eyes.. No, I didn't want to see this person. He held a presence that none of the other monsters even came close to. Though they were terrifying, they were _stoppable. _Gritted teeth and brute force was all that was needed to put those nightmares to rest. This was different. This was the infamous Walter, wasn't it? How obedient he was if it really was him, for he really was always watching me..

"And give us our day by our daily bread.."

Laughing, the intruder began to playfully recite the words as I did, a surprisingly warm hand wrapping around my wrist, lifting it off the bed. He turned it over on to its pale, veiny underside and I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'd done all I could now, and I left my life in the hands of a force that did not truly exist. "And deliver us from evil." I fell silent, chattering teeth and shivering body the only movement in the otherwise still room. An eye forced itself open despite my better judgment, for a felt a something cool being pressed against the feverish skin on my wrist.

All at once, I wish I would have kept my eyes closed. I didn't want to see the long-haired, black-clad, sadistic man sitting before me, wearing the most content of smiles as he traced a line on my wrist with a knife covered in dried blood. His eyes rose and locked briefly with my own, a sheer look of sadistic interest behind those soulless, deep green irises.

"So pretty," He whispered. "Mother must love you.." The tears still flowed, no longer hindered by eyelids. They were tears of fear, of anger. I hated crying. I hated him. I shut my eyes again.

"Open your eyes." 

It wasn't a question, nor was it a request. Despite this, I kept them firmly shut, not so much defiant as fearful. I didn't want his face permanently burned into my mind like so many others. He was the last things _they _saw, too. His other victims. Richard, Cynthia.. it pained me to think about her. At least she'd been a hundred percent convinced that this nightmare was just that, a nightmare. Without a word, I gave my head a brief, curt shake. There was a shudder in the mattress, signifying his approach. I could feel his scentless breath caressing my face. He was close. Too, too fucking close. "It's a shame, you hiding your beautiful eyes like that, Henry." Was this all a game to him?

The coolness touched my cheek, biting deeply into the skin without tearing it. I winced and cried out in surprise, hand rising instinctively to pull the knife away. His free hand caught my futile attempt, hand tightening around it so tightly that I could swear the bone was starting to split. Slowly, carefully, the sharp metal punctured the fleshy part of my cheek, right beneath my eye. It trailed downward in a single, clean cut. Warm was the blood that spilled eagerly forth, and, just as swiftly as he'd done the first one, he repeated the same procedure on the opposite side.

This was the final straw, the ounce of weight that shattered my resolve. Hazel eyes flew over, pupils dilated and eyes bloodshot. I tried to sit up, tried to _get up_, but the added adrenaline to a body well past its spent point had the opposite effect and this, coupled with the fear, made movement nothing more than a distant promise.

"Tears of blood. So much more befitting of you, my Receiver of Wisdom." The cuts weren't deep at all, more like thin, stinging papercuts. But the blood.. I felt it sliding down my cheeks in thick streams, burning the skin there like acid. I managed to turn again, opposite of him, the same hand that I'd tried to use to prevent this fiasco rising to clear at least a little of the red substance away before it could get into my eyes. But the hand.. so shaky and weak.. I groped at my face for a terrifying moment, feeling blood and tears all mingling in a dreadful cocktail, before Walter's strong grip defeated my own and I found my hand pinned to the mattress.

For the first time, I saw him so, so clearly. I'd seen him before, of course, in the other worlds, but those had only been fleeting glances, horrified, disbelieving looks toward a man wielding a gun or revving a bloody chainsaw. All the while he laughed as he chased Eileen and I, treating our encounters like amusing games of hide and seek. So content was his face, so rational.. if his hair wasn't so dark with grime and blood, this man could very well look like the friendly neighbor that no one suspected.

But I knew better.

I knew I was staring into the face of a person who killed and had killed in cold blood with no amount of regret or remorse. It was as if his victims were simply swine and he was the man who led them all to the slaughter. He felt nothing. He _was _nothing. "Why are you doing this to me?" A whisper, barely audible above my haggard breathing. The rib I'd hurt earlier positively screamed with pain and protestation at my abrupt movements before.

"Why?" The beast replied, sounding genuinely shocked, no mocking detectable in his tone. He shifted a bit, hovering over me again. His hand rose—open-palmed—and smeared the blood further across my cheeks, dying pallid skin deep red. I shuddered, still indignant and still frightened.. but what more could I do? Despite the cramped area of South Ashfield Heights, my cries fell on deaf ears. They couldn't hear me, couldn't see me.. I was trapped inside of this apartment at the mercy of a man who believed this cheap, disgusting place was his mother and would weather hell and high water to bring 'her' back.

"Why.." He repeated as he casually licked his palm, seeming as if he were simply taking a sip of coffee. "You want this, Henry.. you _need _me just as I need you. That is why."

For a sliver of a second, my fear simply.. melted away. It was replaced by insane, irrational laughter that I did not have the courage to fully voice. But the incredulous tone was clear in my voice. "Need you? _Need _you? I don't even _know _you! I knew you were crazy but how is it possible for someone to be so.. so idiotic. So dense. So—So—"

"Shy little Henry. You remind me of myself sometimes, you know. Before, your life was so mundane. You held no excitement, simply floating from day to day like a kindred spirit. You had nothing. You loved nothing. What is your purpose in this life, Henry? Tell me, what motivates you to open your eyes to another day of nothingness?!" Walter demanded, a mocking smirk drawing his blood-stained lips upward at their corners.

_It's true, every word of it. Deny it all you want, Henry. _

"I sensed your want of something different. It was fate itself that drew you to Mother, that led you to me. You are a part of something so much more bigger than the existence you were trapped in before. I have liberated you."

I won't deny wanting to try something new.. perhaps move to a nice, large city with lots of people and places to see. I'd dealt with the small-town life and this is what it got me. But to desire abuse and fear..?

"What kind of sick fuck are you?" I murmured beneath my breath. There was nothing else to discuss. No longer would I feel sorry for myself.. Walter certainly didn't. I forced myself up into a sitting position. There was nowhere to run, I knew, but back to Eileen and the hole where danger lurked as well. It was a giant circle of misery and torment, but it didn't matter. I would much rather be ripped to pieces by the creatures beyond the Hole than suffer the psychological pain that crippled my mind as well as my body.

Walter simply watched. "You're so angry. You're going to upset Mother.." His words were spoken as a strange sort of warning, but I ignored it. Legs sliding carefully over the side of the bed, I wobbled on to my feet, groping for the cold, battered piece of steel piping that I'd forgotten existed. Leaning heavily against the wall behind me, I raised the pipe above my head, the metal suddenly weighing a hundred times more than it had before.

After another tense moment, the beast stood, dusting off his jacket as if it weren't already spotted and stained.

"S-Stay away from me!" My voice broke, hardly sounding threatening at all. My hair fell over my eyes, becoming glued to my cheeks via the still-flowing blood, obscuring my vision for the most part.

Needless to say, Walter did not heed my request. He walked slowly around the bed as I'd pulled myself up on the opposite side near the broken door. "Henry, Henry, Henry.." He spoke my name with each echoing step he took. "You're such a pure soul.. so unsoiled despite what you may think. I want to touch it.. I want to taste your innocence…" He smiled again and I flattened myself against the wall, wishing I could melt into the corner in which I'd squeezed myself.

"Leave me alone.. No.. Leave me alone, now!" I held the pipe a little higher in some vain form of warning, but Walter remained wholly unfazed. He came to a stop before me, grizzled face barely inches from my own.

"Do it again, Henry." A drawl, low and deep. He looked even more bestial up close, despite eyes so wide that they feigned innocence. I did not request that he explain what he meant by the statement. Honestly, it didn't matter to me as I tried to will my arm which had become frozen in the air in a statuesque pose, too scared to complete the swing. "Call my name like you did earlier.. cry it, scream it. Let me hear your anguish.." His lips curled away from his teeth in a snarled smile. He knew he'd won. He knew that his efforts were slowly but surely starting to wear away at my defenses.

_No. _

I didn't want to die like this. Anger surged, writhing up my shivering arm. "Rot in hell, you bastard!" The pipe descended, seemingly on its own. It was hard to tell whether it'd be swung or if I simply dropped it, but it made contact and that was all that mattered. The metal struck Walter's forehead with a loud thump, and in that moment of distraction I slipped past him. Limping, hobbling, breathing reduced to ragged gasps, I moved out of the bedroom and into the tiny hallway connecting the living room to the rest of the home. My road split here into two unsavory paths. I either faced the Hole and return to Eileen who was absolutely useless without my guidance or stay here and.. what? Using the wall as my guide, I moved after the chest swimming on the edge of my vision. Perhaps it was my salvation. Within it I kept holy candles and Saint Medallions.. I had never tested them on Walter but I was desperate.

"_Our father, which art in Heaven.." _It was an ethereal voice that originated nowhere and everywhere, mocking me with every painful step I took.

"_Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.." _Everything hurt.. my legs, my chest, my face. The world was a mere blur of rusted brown now, spinning round and round, and round. _Please. I'm so close. _

I didn't make it to the chest, or even to the end of the hallway. The blackness of exhaustion slipped into the edges of my vision, its cool, coaxing fingers massaging away all the pain. I slid down the wall, what little strength I'd had in my body slipping out with one final, exhaled breath. My heart pounded, body flooded with adrenaline, but my will had been broken by this place a long, long time ago. I just wanted it all to end. I wasn't a hero. I'd given it all, and that wasn't good enough. Head bowed, I stared into my lap, watching drops of blood splatter onto my jeans. It was quiet. Maybe he'd gone.

"I thought you would have at least made it through the hole. I was looking forward to chasing you there."

No reason to look up.

A strong hand buried itself in my hair and pulled me forcibly upward and back onto my feet. It hurt.. yes, it hurt. But so many other aches kept me blissfully unaware. I stared, no doubt glassy-eyed into the inhuman eyes that belonged to the beast. "Say it now, Henry. Call to me. I like it when you say my name." Even though my weight was mostly focused back on my weary feet, the hand never left my hair.

"Walter." A harsh whisper, a word I wish I'd never learned of. It was like praying to the devil himself. His other hand had risen as well, but this one pressed my shoulder against the wall painfully hard. He moved forward, body flush against my own. At least now I didn't have to stand anymore.

_So tired.. sleep, Henry.. sleep.. _My mind had entered a state of delirium that hovered on the edge of consciousness and unconsciousness. But Walter would not let me rest, I knew. My eyes lidded, the man before me sliding in and out of blurred focus over and over again.

"No. No resting. Open your eyes." I complied, Walter's face now much, much closer than it had been before. I could see every little detail now, and that fear of having him burned into my memory became a reality in that moment.

"You smell like blood." I don't know why I made such a random observation, but to Walter it was no doubt a compliment. My voice was deadpan, void of any and all emotion.

I suppose he pretended that he didn't hear me as he trailed the hand that had held me in place upward, caressing my still bleeding cheek. "Mother.. She must be so proud of me. Selfishness is unbecoming, after all." I ignored the touch, the words, contemplating a sentence of my own.

"You smell like blood and sadness." I repeated, wincing as his fingers danced back downward, directly over the injured rib. His head buried itself in the crook of my neck, hand in my hair jerking my head off to one side to make room, his skin hot and clammy and sweaty all at once against my own. Hi hair, now parked beneath my nose, held no particularly pungent odor I discovered. Was any of this even real?

Limply I leaned against the wall, breathing as if I'd just run a marathon. So absent was the pain, so far away was the sting I felt associated with the cuts on my cheeks and whatever else he was doing to my neck. Teeth, lips.. lips, teeth..

Never did he bite me hard enough to draw blood. But it was just enough.. just enough to torment me, to make my head fill with misplaced impatience. "Just like b-blood.. an-and sadness.. and insanity.." I could barely hear myself, and I was sure that Walter hadn't heard and if he had it caused reaction.

But at last there _was _change.

My shirt was being unbuttoned, the place so slow and leisurely that the temptation to merely rip it off was mounted. I did not want to remove my clothing I didn't want to be there beneath Walter, but I just wanted it all to end.

A hiss.

Was it from me? Yes. Walter's teeth had sunk a bit deeper, still not penetrating, but the pain was still there as if he had.

"Are you going to kill me?" I don't why I asked. Perhaps Cynthia was right. This could all be a dream within a dream and the only way out was by death. I could be lying in the _real _real world right now, trying to be woken up by Eileen or the doctors. Walter actually graced me with an answer this time. His breath was moist and hot against the harassed skin of my neck.

"Twenty before twenty-one." He simply replied, words low and enigmatic.

Eileen. Oh, God.. Eileen. How could I forget about her? She was still in that damned other world, waiting on the other side of the hole for me to emerge. How long had she been waiting? Was she even still alright..? Without me, Eileen would die.

The cold steel again. This time pressed against my stomach, rising upward, tearing the fabric around the still closed buttons of my shirt. I thanked.. thanked _God _for the undershirt I wore until it became hopelessly clear that was why he'd taken it out in the first place. The harsh metal easily tore through the fabric, right down to the skin. Eventually the weapon came to a stop at the dip in the center of my throat.

The movement was so smooth and absent that he didn't even have to lean back to watch what he did.

I was starting to feel so, so weary. No, I wasn't _starting _to feel that way, but the weight on my shoulders felt as if it doubled with every excruciating second that passed. I leaned against him. I couldn't help it. I was on the verge of collapse.

"Henry..? Henry, no. Wake up!" He sounded like a child being denied his favorite toy. But of course this 'child' had the strength of a fully grown man and then some. He slammed me against the wall. Hard.

I screamed, stars bursting before my eyes. I'm not sure what happened after that. My eyes slid close despite my protest, but this time they didn't open again.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Chapter 2 of 3 is up. Sorry for the delay. Expect the final part of this story soon!

* * *

I don't know how much time had passed.

Days. Weeks. Months.

Perhaps when I opened my eyes this time, I'd be in a hospital having suffered from some sort of massive head trauma. My parents.. Eileen.. they all would be there. Everyone I loved..

Waking up, for lack of a better term, was a bitch. Pain had become a constant companion, but that wasn't what made my heart squeeze violently within my chest. I gasp, choking and sputtering for breath, every limb frozen with both pain and fear.

I was, in fact, in a hospital. A bloodied, torn-up, straight-out-of-hell hospital. I was lying in a dirtied bed underneath a once-white, heavy blanket. The blanket was so constricting, as if Walter had taken the time to tuck me in like a child.

I wanted to scream, to curse and cry all at the same time. Ignoring the pain, I kicked the filthy blanket away and sat up, legs swinging over the side to rest on the floor. The anger slowly began to subside, replaced by some form of rational thought. That was probably the only 'rational' thing about me. My body was wrecked, clothing torn. I looked like I just got in off of the street.

Shaky hands reached up and brushed the skin of my cheeks, a single finger running down the now scabbed knife wounds. "Damn it."

With my shirt torn, I gingerly pulled aside the fabric on the left side of my body, eyes trailing the deep purplish-yellow bruise that lined the skin above the tender rib. It even _looked _painful, and was a grim reminder that I was still merely human in this twisted world. I _could _die. Unable to look at it any longer, I gripped the injured area as carefully as I could and, grabbing a hold of the siderail on either side of the hospital bed, shakily stood.

In my mind, I tried to come up with some scenario, some idea that would leave me alive and Walter either dead or away from me. But.. he was nowhere to be found. I waited, listening for a sinister laugh or a mocking voice. There was nothing. This familiar hospital was extremely quiet. Unusually so. If this truly was the other world, then there had to be a hole somewhere and I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of this place.

It was easy to ignore the mocking fact that I was injured and unarmed, the twisted steel pipe I'd used for protection before lying on the floor still in room 302, and it was easy to ignore how I could barely walk, let alone run if the need were to ever arise, and the little protection that my shirt provided against the nipping, artificial chill of the place had been snatched away as well replaced by the torn, bloodied bits of cloth Walter had left me with. A stripe of milky skin was exposed on my torso where Walter had used his knife in his impatience.

There was a synchronized pounded of my heart in both of my ears a I pushed open the door that was presumably the exit to the unbearably stark, cold room. As luck would have it, the entire warped, hell of a hospital was this way, perhaps a sadistic play on the typical coldness most hospitals possessed.

_Limp. Limp. Limp. _

I must have been a sight. An injured man in a hospital that would much rather watch him suffer than offer any assistance. I might have laughed if it didn't hurt so much to breathe.

The hallway, I realized, was eerie in its familiarity. Eileen. I hardly recognized the place without the occupant-less wheelchairs squeaking up and down the old wooden floors. It was, indeed, the world from which I'd rescued my neighbor, the very same hospital where I'd first met Walter as he dug violently through the abdomen of some murdered monster. A dreading chill danced down my spine as, but I tried to ignore it, concentrating instead on remembering what each room had held. Time had no hold here, so I did not know how long it'd been since I last visited this place, not that it seemed to matter. A tortured mind had blotted out all experience here and everywhere else I'd been, snuffing out the memories before they could permanently scar.

Uneasily, I tried the door closest to me, clammy palm slick against the cool metal knob. I turned it once, and felt the resistance of a lock. Eyebrows furrowing, I tried the next one, and the next, all of which producing the same result. This had to be the same place.. I recognized it, even without the monsters. But now.. all of the doors seemed to be locked.

Every footstep I took held its own echo, every ragged breath making me more and more paranoid.

God, why won't Walter simply show himself? I knew that he was watching my every move.. I could _feel _the icy stare of Death stroking my withered soul, waiting for a wrong move or turn. But as a harsh contrast, Walter's warm breath caressing my neck continued to play in my immediate memory.. his tongue, his teeth. I.. it had felt so good.. God.. it'd felt so good..

_Your sanity won't last long here._

It was true. I could already feel it slipping away.. golden threads cascading through splayed fingers before I could close my fist.

Underneath my breath, I started the prayer again, wondering if God could hear me here.

Room after room.. all locked.

I paused near the end of the hallway—or what I assumed to be the end as past a certain point there was only an engulfing darkness, one that no light could penetrate. One hand still supported by the door knob of another fruitless room, I sank to the floor, too tired to continue on, too much in pain. Head tilted back, I stared up at the flickering, yellow lights, a hand rising to massage the no doubt bruised part of my neck Walter had claimed. Eyes lidding, my head lolled lazily off to one side.

"Take me _home_, Walter.." It was a plea, a plea of a broken and defeated man. I was fighting a useless battle; merely the hopeless, captured mouse resisting the playful grooming of the cat before it was killed. "I give up; you win. Please.. just take me home.."

Giving up meant death.

But, it seemed, I'd accepted this.

A hand print, bloodied and dripping fresh simply materialized on the door directly across from me. I perked, hazy eyes blinking to fight away the grey threatening to take over. Weary, I stood and stared at the handprinted door. What did this mean? I'd tried that door already; it'd been locked.

The door knob in my hand turned without so much as a warning, synchronizing with dozens of other identical _clicks _as other doors began to open as well. Immediately I released it and turned, watching the door creak open in muted horror.

Emerging like soldiers were tall, hulking creatures, all no shorter than seven foot tall, and all sporting melted, browned outfits that reminded me vaguely of nurses. I knew what they were. I'd fought them before. Like clockwork they all turned toward me, blank eyes holding a look of pure contempt and ill-will. The monsters were all around.. there was no escape. Except for in front.

I turned back to the door with the bloody hand print, and saw exactly what a grim part of me expected to. It'd creaked open just a little, but no monster had come out. Sparing no time for thought, I pushed open the door the rest of the way with my shoulder, breathing coming in short, greedy gasps. I shut the door behind me securely, praying that some sort of salvation: a hole, a key to what would draw me out of this hellish world, would be in his room.

And it was._ Oh_ it was.

A hole in plain view, with no sign of the creatures that banged incessantly at the door behind my back. I didn't care if, as soon as I stepped forward, spikes would shoot from the ground or something equally as preposterous would happen, not when I was so close. Home was within reach.

I stumbled and fell, but caught myself on the edge of the hole, and pulled myself up into the crevice.

_Salvation. _


	3. Chapter 3

Hey all, sorry for the long wait for this little snippet. My life has been the epitome of hellish lately, but I was starting to feel guilty not putting up the ending to this story. I typed this whole chapter with a broken 'c' key, and have had to copy and paste every c you see in this story, so you better love me for it. I do not own Silent Hill___ (_Late disclaimer, yay.) and..um.. sad stuff in this chapter. That's all I'm sayin'. Check profile for updates on AIHB for all who are interested in or curious about that.

* * *

I won't even bother to pretend to understand how I managed to make it out of that place alive, but I suppose in some way I owed my life to the man that would take it from me in the end anyway. Ironic.

Despite my obvious predicament, it was the little things that still somehow managed to bother me. My shirt was still torn, and my cheeks.. my cheeks were still bloody. There was no questioning it; my encounter with Walter had been real. Too real.

I wanted to change clothes, to bandage myself up.. Wasn't there still a first aid kit in the chest out front..? Maybe swallowing five or six aspirins would help with the pain. Anything to numb it, anything to make it go away if only for a while.

_Knock. Knock. Knock. _

The three consecutive noises rang throughout my rattled mind, causing instinctual stiffening that made me tempted to duck beneath the blankets and hide from the horrors that may have lurked beyond the hole or in the living room. _The boogeyman can't reach me here.._

But it quickly became apparent that, for once, I had nothing to be afraid of. The knocks had originated from the front door. The stoniness melted from my limbs and, with a little difficulty, coaxed my tired body into a sitting position. It was only the neighbors. Only the neighbors. It'd been a while since they'd come snooping, so the sound was a little reassuring. Maybe Frank had finally figured out that something was up and called in the fire department to break this damned door down.

I should have learned by now that curiosity could literally have killed me, but I was drawn out of bed.. drawn to that little hole carved out of the door that kept me imprisoned here. It was my own small window into the real world aside from the jagged opening that led to Eileen's bedroom, but looking through that would be useless considering she was still somewhere beyond the hole. Waiting for me. Why couldn't she come back here with me? Why couldn't we simply suffer together? Walter had made sure to make this experience as unpleasant and lonely for the both of us.

I stood a bit easier than I had before, but an arm still instinctively wrapped around my middle and gripped the injured rib as if its presence would somehow help to ease the pain. The knocking sounded again, this time more urgently, and I resisted the urge to shout, "I'm coming!" What was the use? They couldn't hear me anyway.

The entire apartment felt somehow empty without Walter there. I stared at my disheveled living room, ignoring the sound of the static-y television that I couldn't remember ever turning on. Again the person knocked, but the closer I stepped to the door, the more ominous I felt. Something wasn't right here..

_Turn back_. A voice whispered. It was the ultimate of all intuition-based feelings, as if some undisclosed force was telling me to stay the hell away from that peephole. Why couldn't I simply have listened..?

I pressed my cheek against the cool metal of the door, hands gripping one of the many ridiculous chains. With one eye closed, the other stared, blinked, and continued to stare.

It was as if there was a delay between my eyes and my brain for it took a moment—a long, soul-wrenching moment—before I finally tore away. "Oh—Oh my God.." I wanted to wretch, to scream, and to sob all at once, but nothing happened. It was as if someone had shut down everything that made me tick. I was frozen, mouth slightly agape in silent awe and pure horror. My voice died with those lasting words.

Though it was only a glimpse, it was long enough for that image to be burned into my mind for an eternity.

What I saw was my fate.

Blood running out of those eyeless, caved in sockets, head canted, lips rapidly moving as it uttered meaningless words, clothing dyed deep, deep red with its own blood.. Oh, God. _It was me. It was me. It was me. _

And.. it was still there.

I don't know what compelled me to move forward again and peer out into the hallway, or why I couldn't tear my eye away from my twisted counterpart. Why was my vision so blurry..? When had the world begin to spin? I felt like a ghost floating above the Henry that stood at the door and pounded his fists violently against it, ignoring the pain that shot up his shoulders each time he did. I was merely a silent observer, the sole witness to a poor man breaking.. look at him scream and writhe in heartbreak. The tears sting the wounds on his cheeks. _No. _He cries over and over again as if the word would somehow make the horrors disappear. _No, no, no. _

_Twenty before twenty-one. _

"No!"

I decided then that there was no feeling worse than knowing that a deal with the devil had been signed in blood, only to realize later that the contract was fraud and my decision was a mistake. But every time I'd called out, or even brought Walter's name into my thoughts had been another letter in my name.

_H-e-n-r-y T-o-w-n-s-h-e-n-d.._

"I don't want to die.." How pathetic I felt. It was a moan, a feeble, broken moan as I rested my head against the door, helplessly sobbing though the tears had stopped flowing a long time ago. I fisted the chains and fruitlessly tugged, the rusted links jingling in a mocking song.

"Death is a part of life, Henry."

Walter. Of course the beast would show up. I was perfect for him now. The venom from this world had penetrated my skin and seeped into my bones, my blood, my very being, crippling me beyond repair. I felt his presence, the deadly air that followed him like a gaseous poison smothering me as he approached. One arm snaked securely around my waist while the other slid through the split fabric of my shirt to rest over the bare skin above my heart. Was it still beating? I was so tempted to ask. He pulled me to him in what might have been a comforting embrace from behind, but I clung to the chains as if they were my lifelines. His touch repulsed me.

"No.. dy-dying is for old people. I'm only twenty-nine. I haven't even gotten to live yet.. please.." Why was I pleading with him? Why had death seemed so appealing before, but now that I was faced with it—literally _faced_ with it—the very thought brought the bitter taste of rising bile in the back of my throat?

..Why was Walter's hand so warm..? It burned.. burned along with his scentless breath that caressed my ear with each word he spoke. He wasn't real. None of this was real."Mother does not discriminate, Henry, and neither do I." He'd returned to the enigmatic, frightening phrases that made it more and more apparent I wouldn't be around long enough to see tomorrow's sunrise.

"And does it not fill you with pride to know that you are giving your life for such a noble, selfless cause? Before you are gone completely and ascend to Paradise, perhaps you will get to see my reunion with Mother.." His voice had dropped to an almost dreamy purr as he pulled me so tightly against him that I winced, biting back a cry through pursed lips.

I knew that trying to reason with Walter was like trying to convince the sun not to shine or the rain not to fall. _You do not feel anger toward the storm brewing on the horizon.. you simply avoid it. (1) _

I tried anyway. Pride no longer mattered here. Dignity.. dignity was simply a faraway promise.

"This apartment is not your mother, Walter! Your mother was a human being with two arms, two legs, and a beating heart. She might even still be alive while you waste your time with this.. you could be trying to find her.." My words were rushed and blurred, almost unintelligible, and of course Walter would hear none of it. To him, I was the one spouting nonsense.

"Shh.. you're only upsetting yourself.. let your final hours be happy ones." He smiled against my ear, words spoken in a tone that was meant to be soothing. I squirmed in his grip, wanting nothing more than to get away. Get away.. to what? The hole? My life had become a giant circle of pain and torment and either way it would end it death, wouldn't it? My final hours..

I felt the realization run through me like an electric charge. Eileen.. she was number twenty, according to him. Could he have..?

"Eileen. What about her? Tell me you didn't.. please.. please tell me you didn't.."Somehow I already knew the answer, but I couldn't bring myself to actually say the word. _Kill. _It was as if the word was a physical manifestation of everything I dreaded and feared here. Eileen couldn't be.. No. No, I was supposed to protect her. And besides, Walter was after me, wasn't he? Eileen was simply collateral damage.. a poor, helpless woman who'd been caught in the crossfire.

It took a moment for Walter to answer. I didn't know if this was because he was preoccupied with the careful movements of his fingers as they danced over my skin or simply because he did not wish to speak.

"Miss Galvin," He began with a sigh as if the subject bored him. "Miss Galvin has been offered. Her dress was so beautiful stained with the crimson of her blood. Her suffering has ended."

I knew I should have felt anger. Outrage. Sadness. _Something. _But there was only peace. Eerie, disheartening peace. The feeling was misplaced, yes, but I was _tired. _

The words registered, and they burned me alive from the inside out. Eileen. Sweet, innocent Eileen. But she felt like someone else's memory to me, as if I were reading about a beautiful woman whose life had an unfortunate last chapter.

"_Failure." _Eileen's voice whispered. _"Failure, failure, failure, failure."_

I felt strangely light. Nothing mattered anymore. My life.. what good was it? I was just another lump of useless flesh that did nothing more than congest the streets and pollute the planet. No one would miss me if I died. I had no true friends, no close family. I was alone in life, just as I would be in death. No, no that's not true. Walter would stay. He would make sure he 'revived' his mother correctly. There was nothing left for me to do other than relent and assist a psychotic, pathetic man.

Instantly, my mind cleared. It was as if the revelation was the enlightenment and salvation from God that I had been so desperately searching for. I shut my eyes and allowed all tension to leave my body. The warmth was all that mattered.. I leaned back into it, into _him_, and I knew that he'd realized all the fight in me had evaporated.

Walter's grip loosened, and, with a gentle, encouraging tug on one of my shoulders, turned me to face him. His eyes haunted me. They held a frightening sort of innocence, innocence that mingled and intertwined in disturbing harmony with an underlying menace. He studied a scarred and bloodied face; studied lackluster jade eyes that had had the life drained from them a long, long while ago. I tried to focus on him, but my mind swam with too many thoughts, thoughts that made it hard to concentrate on much of anything.

_We create monsters that we cannot control._

As if acting on its own accord, I watched my left right hand shakily rise and come to rest against his cheek. The look he gave me in response was one of pure confusion, although that quickly shifted away and he smirked. Just.. smirked. His skin held a clammy sort of warmth, one that made my hand twitch and want to pull away. Nothing was right about him. He was the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing, a monster masquerading as a human, and I was the unsuspecting lamb.

"See, Henry? Fighting destiny is the sport of fools." He murmured. I tried to comprehend the words, tried to come up with some witty response. But I was going to die here anyway, wasn't I? I'd been sucked into a world borne of confusion and torture. It was not my place to give orders or resist. Resistance only brought more pain.

I felt my lips curl upward in a defeated smile, a gesture wholly misplaced and foreign on a face so pained and broken. He placed an encouraging hand over my own and leaned forward so that our foreheads touched. Warm and cold and warm again.. a confusing array of sensations danced over my face and throughout the rest of my body from the simple move. He seemed strangely.. tender in this position; muted, hazel-green eyes peering into my own. I squirmed beneath the gaze, feeling as if my very soul had been exposed and thrown in front of a pack of angry, starved lions. But I held my ground, staring back at him just as intensely. _Let your final hours be happy ones._

I don't remember pressing forward.. don't remember tilting my head slightly to the left so that our lips lined up perfectly without any interference from our noses. The instant our lips touched, I felt a sense of something breaking within me.. some boundary that had been carefully set in place to act as a voice of caution, of common sense, and of sanity. I felt only satisfaction. Unsettling, disturbing satisfaction.

His tongue broke through the dam of my lips, warm and moist, and probed the delicate interior of my mouth with a curious sense. I was frozen in place, silenced by the kiss, and could barely keep standing as the world around me fell away.

Each world swirled and danced through my head and before my eyes.

_Cynthia is gorgeous, beautiful in a way that____ s__creamed no man would be able to tame her. A spirit caught in a world of funhouse mirrors that misconstrues the truth. Does she have any family that will miss her? Her own natural Temptation is what kills her in the end._

_The forest and trees are peaceful, a welcome change to the oppressive walls of the apartment. But they aren't real. Beyond it all lays a house of horrors where Jasper lingers. His stutter makes him so hard to understand sometimes. But beneath the sputtered words lies a story of the Devil, a Devil which intrigues him. Jasper is the Source of it all, and perhaps his demise was well warranted. _

I felt my body convulse in the kiss, but I forced myself not to pull away. Walter's body pressed harshly against my own, the sounds of feverish skin on skin and his own ragged breathing the only noises meeting my ears. But the images.. the moving pictures that only I could see were like a roar that drowned out everything else. These people.. I'd never met any of them before and yet their deaths felt like claws being dragged across the surface of my heart.

_No. _

_Andrew. He is an evil man working for an evil organization. Does he know how much pain he caused countless little lives? His Watchfulness kept children in line, yes, but it also guaranteed him an unholy death at the hands of a tarnished soul._

_Richard saw this hell, too. So close did he live to the source, just as unaware as I had been before. He promised Chaos wherever he went.. Chaos and murder and heartache. What he disliked, he simply killed. Was life for him always that simple?_

I knew what was next. I saw her face in my mind; saw the pure smile that was the front of an equally pure heart. Instinctively, I shrank away from Walter as if trying to outrun the images, but he held me firmly in place. The kiss was purely his to control now and with each passing second, I felt myself growing more and more weary. It was a strange sort of fatigue, incomparable to anything I've ever felt before.

_Eileen. _

There was nothing for her. No thoughts, only memories. _Take me with you, _she'd said. I flinched, drawn momentarily back to reality by a hand being drawn over my stomach; caressing skin and bone alike. My chest quivered as the injured rib was touched, but I felt no pain. The reaction was more of a reflex than an actual reaction. With a lazy blink, I realized that Walter was no longer before me. His lips had descended to that same spot on my neck from before, only this time I felt his lips move in soft speech.

"It'll only hurt for a second." It was the promise of a doctor administering an injection to a frightened child.

And then there was the pain. I felt it this time, clear as day. It blossomed from my abdomen upward in a violent wave, overcoming anything and everything it touched. My backed arched, a bubbling scream dying in my throat before it could be voiced. But, again, it was all relative. Was I really feeling any of this at all? My gaze blurred and rolled up to the ceiling, the expanse of rust-brown stucco becoming a screen that reflected what played within my head.

_Beside the bed was where it was best to pray. Mom always said to kneel but sometimes I'd stand to make getting into bed easier. Tonight she was with me though, kneeling obediently beside me as we placed our hands together and bowed our head. "Repeat after me." She whispered as if God would get angry she hadn't started the prayer yet._

"_Our father which art in Heaven.." And I did. Every word I repeated and memorized, for this was a bedtime prayer different from the easy-to-remember 'Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep'. I was mesmerized. What did all of it mean anyway? _

_Tucking me in, my mother perched gracefully on the space that remained on the twin-sized mattress that was not taken up by my slight form. "Do evil people go to Heaven, too, Momma?" I asked, and she gave me a puzzled look. Perhaps the prayer had been too grown-up for me, it said. She tapped her chin thoughtfully before answering._

"_I don't believe that there is pure evil in this world, Henry. All those bad people out there just have monsters inside of them. Monsters that tell them to do terrible things. Sometimes they can conquer those monsters on their own, but sometimes they need someone to help fight them. And in the end, if they ask God for forgiveness for what they've done, they will be let into Heaven, too." She said, leaning down and placing a soft kiss on my forehead. From that night on, that was the only prayer I spoke._

After all I'd seen, I wondered if Walter had a monster inside of him, too. Did he need help fighting it? Everything was slowing down, and my vision swam. I watched two, three Walters dance in front of me, smiling and stroking my hair. "It'll be over soon." His voice was warped and sluggish in my ears. And he was right. The pain faded, and Walter's face became nothing more than an unidentifiable shape. But I continued to stare, a lazy smile only barely turning up the corners of my lips. Liberation came in the form of three simple words.

"Fuck you, God."

Then, it all faded to black.

_Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you._

_

* * *

_

And there you have it, my lovies. I found that quote on the internet by a man named Friedrich Nietzsche and thought it fit nicely. As for the little (1) up there, I stole _that _quote from a little show called Star Trek: Voyager. I thought it was really cool and wanted to incorporate it here. Don't judge me. Also I hate putting the character death warning in my summary. I feel like it takes away from the story. BUT, if you think that I should to save that one Henry fangirl from killing herself (Me!), then let me know. ):


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